After you buy it on Amazon, you can read the first chapter which is available online.

Now I am going to read Part Two, in which Huemer argues the practical case for anarcho-capitalism. His thesis is that “a livable society could exist with no recognized central authority.” Note that, in addition to the thesis of Part One, it is necessary to argue this thesis to convert the reader to anarcho-capitalism, because without it minimal state libertarianism would be justified since common sense morality dictates that aggressive coercion can be justified if it is necessary to avoid a sufficiently great harm. Huemer’s lead essay for Cato, “The Problem of Authority,” which summarizes the content of his book well, elaborates on the need for this second thesis.

UPDATE 08/21/2013: I finished reading Mike Huemer’s The Problem of Political Authority today. It is better than any other book on libertarian political philosophy I have read. I highly recommend it.

I really think his “common sense morality” approach to defending libertarianism (as opposed to the rights-based approach or the consequentialist economic argument approach) is most likely to be the most effective way to persuade people to reject political authority and embrace libertarian anarchism.

Great! I’m sure you’ll find it interesting. It’s a completely different approach to defending anarcho-capitalism than the austro-libertarian rights-based approach. I’m yet to see any data on this, but I am willing to bet that it will prove to be more likely to be effective at persuading most non-libertarians to libertarianism than the rights-based approach. Perhaps it is best if people are exposed to both kinds of arguments, but if I had to choose only one kind of argument to use with someone I would choose Huemer’s approach.

“Huemer’s case seems ultimately motivated by the claim that the state causes more harm than good. Huemer never makes this claim explicitly, but it seems implicit throughout his writing.”

I replied:

“Huemer never makes that claim explicitly or implicitly.

“Huemer’s case for anarchism is motivated by the fact that all governments performs acts of kinds which nearly everyone agrees would be immoral if performed by any non-government agent (p. 4). He explains that the reason why people think it’s okay for governments to perform acts of these kinds, but not private agents, is because people believe that governments have political authority (p. 5). He then argues that no government actually has political authority (Part I). The upshot of governments not having political authority is that governments may not do what it would be wrong for any non-government agent to do (p. 177). Finally (in Part II), he argues that the consequences of anarchy would not be so bad as to justify having a minimal state (on the common-sense-morality ground that acts that are usually immoral can be justified if they are necessary to avoid something much worse from happening).

“Nowhere in this case for anarchism does he rely on the claim that the state causes more harm than good.”